Customer Reviews

The Burnished Blade

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This delightful peek into the beginning of the Renaissance starts with the death of Joan of Arc, from the view of a small boy, and ends with his marriage. Historically accurate, lively, and extremely well-written, it's a solidly good read.

The book begins in 1431 as a noble knight and his family on their way to Rouen are attacked by highwaymen and left for dead, although their young son survives the attack. With no knowledge of his family or name, he is adopted by Armorer Hugh of Milan and called Pierre. Hugh ensures that Pierre is well-educated and trained as a knight and when he travels to Paris on his guardian's behalf he saves the life of the elder daughter of the Count de la Tour-Clermont. When he's older Hugh obtains employment through the grateful Count (and madly in love with the younger daughter although he cannot have her) and is sent to Trebizond in the East on a mission to investigate an alleged smuggling operation.

What follows are Pierre's adventures with scheming Turks, Greeks, a corrupt noble or two (as well as the evil eunuch), lots of treachery and betrayals and sword fight or two as Pierre sorts through it all to get to the bottom of the mystery. That all sounds very exciting and while I did enjoy the novel and the author's writing, this was written in 1948 and it does show at times. Not the prose itself, I quite enjoyed that - but the *action* (except for the impaling, now that was gory as all get out) is going to come across as a bit tame for today's jaded readers, and despite the lurid cover there's not much sex or romance to be found. It is a good book, just not a great one.

Wonderful! Schoonover has done a spectacular job of moulding fiction with history without going overboard. I highly recommend it for lovers of 15th century France. A good read all the way!

Schoonover was a very popular historical novelist in the 1940s and `50s, though he's largely forgotten today. My father was a fan, though, and bought all his books, and so I read his copies more than half a century ago. Something brought him to mind recently and I began searching out his novels, of which I remembered only bits and pieces, and I'm glad I did. This is his earliest successful work and I still think it's his best; it played a significant part in getting me interested in the world of Renaissance Europe and the twilight of the Byzantine Empire. The story begins near Rouen in 1431 when the knightly parents of seven-year-old Pierre are killed in the forest by brigands and the boy is rescued in timely fashion by a priest and entrusted to a renowned Italian armorer resident in the city. After so recently seen the bodies of his parents burned, Pierre unfortunately witnesses the death of the Maid of Orleans, but he gets over it as he is adopted into the family of Hugh of Milan and grows up in a happy and well-connected family. He gets an education, learns a number of languages, and meets some important people who are clients of his foster father. He saves a young noblewoman from an unpleasant demise during the plague (another fire), which leads him to employment by Jacques Coeur, the financial genius who was instrumental in making France, which had barely survived the Hundred Years' War, into one of the powerhouses of the modern Western world. Then an investigation into an opium-smuggling operation between the Eastern Empire and France (which deprives both governments of their tax revenues) takes him off to Constantinople, and then to Trebizond on the Black Sea, where Pierre not finds himself in great danger but also succeed in his greatest ambitions. There's a certain amount of swashbuckling, plus inn-destroying drunken fights, evil Bulgarians, gallant Venetians, cautious Turks, and scheming Greeks, but it's all at a reasonable, believable level, and Schoonover imparts a great deal of quite accurate information about the 15th century Mediterranean world. There's also a love story, of course, and a happily-ever-after sort of ending, but that's okay. Because this book was written when it was, the sex is only occasionally and very lightly hinted at. Oh, and there's also a thoroughly vivid execution by impalement as a denouement which has stuck in my mind since I first read the book so many years ago. This is an author who deserves to be rediscovered.

I read it in high school, and had forgotten the title; however I remembered it fondly. I found it in a list of historical novels and got a library copy to read. I still really liked it after all those years, particularly the part in Trebizond. I just ordered a copy for my sister who is going on a Black Sea cruise next month, calling in Trabzon (modern Trebizond). I hope she enjoys it!

It isn't often that an author blends history and fiction into that rare combination that carries you, the reader, to another time and place. Lawrence Schoonover is such an author. I have read just about all of his works and this tale of power, hard earned wisdom, and spiritual enlightenment, is one of my favorites. If you like John Brick, Conrad Richter, and Howard Breslin, you will enjoy discovering Lawrence Schoonover.

This is an excellent story. It is historically accurate and will keep the reader's attention until the tale's conclusion.